BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has expressed its keenness to set up an integrated coach factory in Odisha for aluminium body train sets. The issue has been raised by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in a letter to Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday.“I am writing this in the context of production of high speed aluminium bodied ‘Train 20’ train sets to be rolled out by the Ministry of Railways by 2020. The State Government is extremely keen to set up the integrated coach factory for these train sets in the State,” the Chief Minister said in the letter.
Stating that Odisha is the largest producer of aluminium and houses about 56 per cent of the smelting capacity, Naveen said the State Government is developing a dedicated aluminium park where molten aluminium can be directly obtained from the smelter of Nalco for manufacturing the train sets. The Chief Minister said in view of the unique advantage in the State, production costs for the coaches could come down substantially through use of committed feed stock from the mother plant in the immediate vicinity.
“The State has also identified downstream and ancillary units in metal sector as one of the five focus sectors and we are committed to provide unmatched facilitation support to manufacturing investments in the State,” he said and requested the Railway Ministry to consider setting up the integrated coach factory for aluminium body train sets in Odisha.